When colleges and universities seek out third-party solutions for online program development, marketing, and enrollment initiatives, they have a couple of options.  One option is to invest in an OPM (Outsourced Program Manager) that bundles up those services as part of a comprehensive revenue sharing program. Another option is to link up with a marketing agency or enrollment services partner that provides fee-based unbundled services.  OPMs were once considered the go-to approach for schools. But developments in the past decade have demonstrated the advantages of unbundled marketing ..read more

Are your Google Ads targeted enough to bring in qualified leads?  In the world of digital marketing, not all leads are created equal. If a school’s paid search campaign isn’t reaching the right audience, they’ll waste valuable time and money attracting and contacting the wrong potential students.  That’s why when it comes to paid advertising, lead quality matters more than lead quantity. It may seem counterintuitive to prevent a Google Ad from reaching more people, but targeting ads effectively is essential to any enrollment strategy. It brings in qualified prospects who are more lik ..read more

Higher Education Has an Opportunity to Lead New Paradigm Shifts Now that nearly half the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, there’s a lot of talk about life returning to normal here in America. But what—and who—defines what is normal? And was there ever such a thing as normal in the first place?  The reality is that life is an ongoing series of paradigm shifts, meaning the concept of normal is always changing. The set of ideas, principles, and guidelines that apply to individuals and societies at a given time inevitably outlive their value and relevance, prompting necessary change ..read more

Enrollment services departments have a lot of information to keep track of on a daily basis. In the process of building personal connections with prospective students and guiding them toward enrolling at an institution, they’re often bogged down by the minutiae of tracking, recording, and analyzing these interactions.  But what if your team no longer had to concern itself with that minutiae? What if you could trade in your department’s color-coded spreadsheets for a proactive tool that makes everyone’s life easier and gives back valuable time and resources?  A proactive Customer Rela ..read more

Harvard Kennedy School Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education Debra Iles believes that the pandemic has “created the opportunity for us to think differently, to embrace some things that we were perhaps postponing.” Debra and I met virtually for episode 18 of MindMaxing, the final episode in the podcast’s first season, where she reflected on the unique perspective she and her colleagues had throughout the pandemic. Listen to the full episode wherever you find your podcasts or watch it above. You can watch or listen to Debra’s full episode below or catch up on all of our podcast episodes ..read more

Dean of Harvard University Division of Continuing Education and University Extension Nancy J. Coleman, Ed.D., believes creating space for reflection is important, especially in higher education. “If we’re truly going to figure out ‘how do we create value for our students?’ … there needs to be some thinking in that. And I found one of the best ways to do that is through connection with my peers, whether it be through UPCEA, or other associations, or other meetings,” Nancy said during our conversation for episode 17 of MindMaxing, our second to last episode of our first season. Listen to the ful ..read more

You know you need effective email sequences to meet your school’s enrollment goals. You know how important it is to align marketing content with a student’s personal journey. But how effectively is your institution using email to nurture prospective students?  In MindMax’s years of experience as a trusted partner and advisor to many of the nation’s top universities, we’ve found that while many of our clients understand the importance of nurturing prospective students with targeted email sequences, they struggle to know where and how to begin. Understanding the Framework for the Student Jo ..read more

Excelsior College Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs John Caron can see a difference in how colleges and universities are networking since the start of the pandemic. One of the things that Excelsior is doing that John finds interesting is exploring partnership opportunities with other schools, exploring pathways from their non-credit courses and certificates to an Excelsior degree program. “There’s an openness maybe as a result of this experience we all went through in 2020 to collaborate and to partner rather than compete with each other,” John said in episode 16 of MindMaxing. L ..read more

Southern Methodist University Managing Director of Global, Online, and Continuing Education Kim Rutigliano is hopeful that the positive shifts colleges and universities went through to make classes accessible due to the pandemic will continue to bring about positive change in the future. “I think, at its best, if we continue on this trajectory, the place that we’re leading to is to address issues of access and equity to widen the net of who can attend a college,” Kim said in episode 15 of MindMaxing. Listen to the full episode for her take on what other lessons were learned in the last year. Y ..read more

I’ve always been fascinated by the power of perception. Our preconceived notions can blur the lines between the perceived value and the actual value of a product, an experience—even an education. In 2008, the MindMax team kicked off an engagement to market an online program for an Ivy League college. The program itself, including the curriculum and the teaching staff, was excellent. But the quality and even content of the program mattered less to potential students than might be expected.  The university’s clout—their market perception—carried more weight than the actual instructional des ..read more